How to Love

“I can’t fucking believe that we’re doing this,” I grumbled from the backseat of Andrea’s car. Liz sat beside me while Matt sat in the front, playing with the radio dial. It was almost nine on Friday night, and I was due to meet Jake at Alexander’s party in about fifteen minutes. With Matt’s stupid detour idea, there was no way we’d make it in time. I glared at the back of Matt’s head. “Why did I let you talk me into this?”

“Relax,” Matt said for probably the eighth time in the last five miles. I could see him rolling his eyes in the mirror. “Just don’t tell Dad and it’ll be fine.”

Yeah, like I was going to tell my dad that after a perfectly innocent dinner at Applebee’s, we all decided to go to a sex shop next to a popular strip club chain. It had been Matt’s idea, of course. If he hadn’t had those stupid margaritas at dinner, it was unlikely that he’d have thought of something this ridiculous. Still, nothing had deterred Matt from this idea, and it was a doozy. “Okay, completely barring the fact that I’m not old enough to get in, why do you think I would even want to go?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Because it’s a new experience and it’s fun.”

“Fun for whom?” I scoffed with an eye roll of my own. I was already anxious about going to this party with Jake later on; I didn’t want to be worried about getting busted trying to go into a sex shop. I found myself relieved that Jake had declined our Applebee’s invitation. I couldn’t even imagine how much more embarrassing the situation would have been with him there.

“For us,” Andrea finally chimed in. “Think of all the virgin jokes we can all make.”

I sighed and shook my head, leaning back in my seat. This was going to be a very long night by the sounds of it.

“It’s fine,” Liz nudged me with a whisper. “I’m not all that thrilled about going either.”

“How the hell do you think I’m even going to get in, Matthew?” I asked, ignoring Liz’s attempt at comfort. “You do realize that they card, right?”

“Well, just leave your ID in the car,” Matt said. “Then if we get carded, look in your wallet, say you forgot it, and then they’ll either let you in anyway or you’ll just go sit outside and wait. No big deal.”

“If they don’t let you in, I’ll sit outside with you,” Liz volunteered.

“I’ll give you my car keys so that you don’t have to sit outside and freeze,” Andrea offered. That was probably the only helpful thing she’d said all night.

Liz and I nodded in response and a few moments later, we pulled up to the sex shop. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I could hear some kind of siren going off.

“Well, looks like they know you’re trying to get in,” Matt said to me, laughing.

“It’s a fucking fire truck!” Liz protested in my defense, though she was also giggling.

“No, it’s the store’s virgin alarm,” Andrea cracked, gaining a high five from Matt. I said nothing as we walked inside, strolling right past the lone employee yelling heatedly into her cellphone outside. I breathed a sigh of relief since I didn’t have to put on a big show about not having my ID.

The store was nothing like I’d expected. For whatever reason, I’d had visions of dirt and grime, with whips and chains on the walls and dirty old perverts in trench coats studying the shelves of porn. Instead, the store was divided into three main sections and had bright, clean white lighting. The right side of the store was home to racks of lingerie and erotic costumes while the left side had seemingly endless shelves of porn. Along the back wall, there was a whole section dedicated to dildos, vibrators, and other various sex toys. Naturally, that’s where everyone was drawn to, so I followed them in their migration. I never in my life thought that I would feel intimidated by a wall of fake penises.

I watched in silence while Matt and Liz debated prices and qualities of various vibrators while Andrea mulled over the same thing, eventually wandering over to the girl-on-girl porn, which is all they seemed to have besides gang bangs and BDSM type stuff. I shifted awkwardly as I stood next to the bachelorette party gag gifts, which included penis-themed everything. I glanced at my phone to check the time, becoming increasingly antsy. It was close to nine-thirty now, and I was officially a half hour late to meet Jake at Alexander’s. Just as I was about to send him a text with a very censored explanation of our lateness, he called me.

“Hey, where are you guys?” Jake asked, sounding slightly irritated. I couldn’t blame him on that one.

“You don’t want to know,” I shook my head. “Trust me. I’ll explain later. I’m sorry we’re so late. Matt had another one of his three margarita ideas, and I was just about to text you.”

“It’s fine,” Jake said, his tone relaxing. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I got a little concerned when you weren’t here exactly at nine. You’re usually ridiculously punctual. It’s scary.”

I laughed. “Sorry. This one’s out of my hands. I’ll let you know when we’re almost there. Andrea and I still have to drop Matt and Liz off.”

“Okay,” he said easily. “Have fun with whatever it is you guys are up to.”

“I can assure you I won’t.” We said good-bye after that and hung up. I tried to hurry everyone along in the interest of time, though I’d received a lengthy lecture from Matt on the difference between dildos and vibrators when I’d made the horribly unforgivable error of generalizing fake phallic devices. Evidently I was completely out of my element. The woman who had been outside finally came inside and was ranting to Matt about how men don’t listen, and it was growing uncomfortable, so Liz and I decided to exit the store while Andrea and Matt bought their respective sex shop items. I unlocked the car so Liz and I could warm up a little, and I sighed in relief. “That was the most awkward experience of my life.”

“Can’t be worse than the eyelash thing,” Liz joked.

I frowned. “I thought we agreed to never speak of that again.” I was never living that one down. “And yeah, I think this experience might trump that one.”

“I was more disappointed than anything,” Liz said. This had also been her first time in a sex shop, and like me, she seemed to not know exactly what to expect, even though it was essentially a glorified Spencer’s. “I wanted to get the vibrator with the leopard design on it, but Matt made us get the black one.”

“Oh Goddamnit.” I slapped a hand over my face. “Please never tell me what you two with that thing.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on it,” Liz shook her head.

“Thank God,” I scoffed. “That would probably go right up there on my list of awkward moments if you did.”

“Did you really think it was that bad?” Liz asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I don’t have any use for any of that stuff. I’m not having sex. I don’t really care about porn. And I definitely have no use for a vibrator, and I sincerely doubt that I will at any time in the near future.”

“You never know,” she shrugged. “You might want a little action if you’re not getting any from Jake. Or you could have bought some lingerie to get something going.”

“Or,” I started, “that’s something we haven’t talked about yet, and we’re not rushing it.”

“Oh, come on,” Liz insisted. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. That is a face made for sitting on.”

I sighed, irritated after fighting down the urge to vomit after having a brief mental flash of Liz and Matt engaging in such activites. How long did it take for Matt and Andrea to buy their Goddamn vibrators? “Well, yeah, of course. We’re just taking it moderately slow when it comes to that.” Besides, it’s not like my first time was all that great.

“Take what slow?” Andrea asked, opening the driver’s side door and tossing her bag at Liz’s feet.

“Sex with Jake,” Liz answered her immediately. I shot her a glare, but she merely shrugged.

“Ah, yes, I finally get to meet the Greek god tonight,” Andrea smiled. Against my better judgment, I’d invited Andrea to tag along to Alexander’s party that night. She’d been cleaning at the funeral home earlier that afternoon, and we’d been getting along pretty well. Andrea had said something about wanting to meet Jake, and before I knew it, I’d invited her to come along. “Aren’t Greek gods famous for hooking up with virgins?”

“Hilarious,” I dead-panned. “Awesomely witty. You really deserve a medal for that one, you know that?”

Matt finally left the sex shop and re-joined us in the car, singing some song the entire ride back to Liz’s house that he’d made up to match the Dora the Explorer theme song. “Come on, let’s get to it. I know that we can do it. Where are we going? To have sex in the car! Where are we going? To have sex in the bed! Where are we going? To have sex in the shower! Because it’s waterproof!” At this point in the song, he would whip the vibrator out of the bag and wave it above his head, and I greatly questioned my brother’s maturity and Liz’s sanity for dating him. By the time we dropped them off, I’d had about enough of Matt for the evening, so I was thankful to be on our way to the party.

“So is this gonna be a sausage fest?” Andrea asked as we drove.

“Most likely,” I shrugged. I had my phone out to text Jake that we were on our way, as I’d promised him I’d do.

“What are you doing, checking in?” Andrea scoffed, glancing over.

“No,” I frowned, my fingers gliding across the keyboard. “It’s a courtesy thing. You know, since we’re completely fucking late.” Andrea had no right to mention anything to me about “checking in” since that’s all her relationship with Lydia had been.

“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Andrea said, her tone conveying annoyance. “Matt’s the one that wanted to go.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said shortly. I felt like arguing with her since she was the driver and the responsibility of time management fell to her, but I felt like it would be pointless and would ultimately lead to an unpleasant evening. Instead, I cranked her radio up. We sang along with a few of the songs, but didn’t share much conversation.

“So how serious are you and Jake?” Andrea finally asked as we pulled onto Alexander’s street. There were cars lined along the side of his house, and the closest spot we could find was about three houses down.

“Getting to be pretty serious,” I said. “We hang out close to every day, and we agreed that we don’t want to see anyone else, but we’re not labeling it.”

“I see.” Andrea pulled along the side of the curb and shut the car off, letting us out. “Well, I think it’s good for you, at least. He sounds nice.”

“He is,” I nodded. “He’s probably one of the best guys I know, actually.”

“Well, if Alexander hasn’t threatened him with firearms yet, that’s probably true.”

We trudged through the mini-mountain of snow along the curb and trekked up the sidewalk to Alexander and Ryan’s house. We could hear music thumping from outside, so we decided to let ourselves in since any attempts to ring the bell would prove futile. There was a decent sized group of people gathered around a beer pong table in the living room. Luckily, this time I recognized most of these people, unlike Clay’s party.

“Hey,” Alexander greeted, beer in hand, cigarette in the other. “We weren’t sure if you were coming or not.”

“We got a little held up,” I explained. “You know, this seems like a small gathering for you.”

“Oh, there’s a poker table set up in the office,” Alexander said. “That’s where just about everybody is. Plus there’s a couple people downstairs listening to music and getting stoned.” He said this with an incredibly nonchalant tone. “I’ve been down there with Jake. He brought some chick with him, though. I think her name’s Donna.”

“Dayna?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said, snapping his fingers in recognition. “Dayna. She’s kind of hot. She’s kind of weird, too. Keeps touching him and stuff. I don’t think he’s all that comfortable with it, though.” He rolled his eyes. “Not to mention, she’s a joint hog. I don’t think she understands puff-puff-pass. With her, it’s more like puff-puff-puff-puff-pass.”

Andrea snorted. “I didn’t even know you smoked pot.”

“Please!” I laughed. “We smoked pot together like two years ago and he threw up in the bathroom sink at Olive Garden when we went to dinner with Dad later that night.”

Alexander ignored me. “I smoke it on occasion. This is an occasion.” He waved his arms around. “Come on, go grab yourselves something to drink, play beer pong, get in on the poker tournament, smoke up, socialize, something. I’ve got Smirnoff for you,” he pointed to Andrea and then to me, “and wine for you in the fridge hidden in the back.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll get some in a little while.” Andrea went straight for her Smirnoff and twisted one open while I said hi to a few people I knew. I was about to head down to the basement to greet Jake when I turned the corner leading to the stairs and walked right into him.

“Hey,” he smiled lazily. “How was dinner? Sorry I missed it.”

“You missed out,” I scoffed. “Matt got drunk and made us go on an adventure.”

“Oh, what kind of adventure?” Jake asked coyly, raising his eyebrows in interest.

“The kind that requires copious amounts of alcohol for me to tell you about,” I answered, digging my bottle of wine out of the fridge and digging through one of the drawers for a cork screw. “You want a beer or anything?”

“Nah, I’m cool with water for now,” he shook his head. “I don’t really drink, but thanks.”

I was about to ask Jake about that when someone slid their arms around his waist from behind.

“Hey, you,” a sultry female voice drawled. I could see the top of someone’s blonde head perk up from behind his shoulders. “I was wondering where you went.”

Jake frowned and eased out of her grip. “Hey, Dayna.” She walked around the side of him now, trying to clasp his hand, which he also removed himself from. “This is Veronica. I was telling you about her earlier, remember?”

“Oh, right, the jailbait,” Dayna smiled sweetly, though her tone conveyed anything else. When I’d seen her at the mall a few weeks ago, I had thought Dayna was gorgeous. But up close, if you removed the heavy eye makeup and ignored the fact that her boobs were too large for her frame and spilling out of her shirt, she wasn’t much to look at. But being Jake’s friend, I wanted to think the best of her, despite my first bout of jealousy, and so far, she was making that hard to do.

Jake shot her a look of annoyance and immediately tried to make amends. “She’s just kidding,” he laughed awkwardly.

Dayna joined him, though she sounded completely fake. “Right. Sorry, I just have a weird sense of humor.” She stuck her hand out to me. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” I said as I shook her hand. Andrea joined us, clearly wanting to be introduced. I pointed to people as I said their names. “Jake, Dayna, this is my cousin Andrea.”

They all exchanged greetings and shook hands, though Andrea and Dayna held hands longer than the general societal norm. I had to fight the instinct to roll my eyes at Andrea. Naturally Andrea would latch onto the one person there who seemed to want my head on a silver platter. We all stood and talked for a little while, until Dayna and Andrea finally walked off together, leaving Jake and me alone in the kitchen.

“I’m sorry about that,” Jake said, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort. He looked nervous. “I don’t know why Dayna’s being like that. I wasn’t really planning on inviting her, but she wanted to meet you, I guess. And for the record, I never said you were jailbait. I just said that you hadn’t turned eighteen yet.”

“It’s fine,” I waved him off, finally getting to pour my wine into one of the traditional red party cups. “I didn’t think you did. Although, that’s not a stigma I’ll have to live with much longer since my birthday’s in two weeks. Jailbait will no longer need to be my title.” I took a sip of my wine.

“What the hell are you talking about, jailbait?” Andrea asked, strolling back into the kitchen and grabbing another Smirnoff. “You’re not gonna sleep with him. I’m gonna be honestly surprised if you ever lose your virginity.” She laughed and then turned to Jake. “We went to this sex shop earlier tonight – that’s why we were late – and you should have seen the look on her face when she glanced at the clearance porn table. Priceless.”

“Thank you,” I rolled my eyes. “Are you done with the virgin jokes for the evening? Because they’re fucking annoying, and if I hear another one, I can think of someone whose tires are getting slashed.”

She put a hand on my shoulder before walking away again. “Lighten up. It’s a joke. Sheesh.”

I watched her go and then turned back to Jake. “So now it’s my turn to be sorry about someone else’s behavior.”

“So tell me, why do the virgin jokes bother you so much?” Jake inquired, leaning against the counter.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “My sex life is between me and whomever I choose to share it with. It doesn’t concern anyone else. I mean, if I slept with someone and got an STD or something, then I’d be morally liable to tell you, but aside from that, it’s not anyone else’s business but mine.”

“That’s understandable,” he nodded. He kept talking, seemingly trying to improve the situation. “There’s no shame in being a virgin, though. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I know it’s not,” I agreed. “But I’m not. A virgin, I mean.” I regretted the words as soon as they’d left my mouth and wanted to kick myself in the teeth for verbalizing that. For God’s sake, I’d only had one sip of wine. That was hardly license to start spilling my guts this early in the evening.

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that,” Jake said. He seemed like he was trying not to pry, but he looked desperately curious at the same time. “That’s fine. I’m not either.”

“Please, even I could have figured that one out,” I scoffed, taking an intensely long sip from my cup of wine.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he frowned.

“I’m not trying to offend you or anything,” I explained. “But I have a hard time imagining you being a virgin.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you’re too good-looking,” I shrugged. That was the only explanation that I could conjure up, but now that I said it out loud, it sounded kind of stupid.

He laughed. “That’s absurd.”

“Fine,” I said. “When did you lose your virginity?”

“Embarrassingly young,” he replied after a moment of hesitation. “It was over Christmas break my freshman year of high school. I was hanging out with this girl, and I don’t know, we were bored and just kind of decided to get it over with. I was fourteen, and it didn’t mean anything to me.”

“Did it mean something to her?” I asked. It almost bothered me how nonchalant he was about it. In fact, he reminded me of Ryan for a brief moment.

“I don’t think so,” Jake said. “I mean, it’s been like six and a half years, and we’re still good friends. And we haven’t been together like that since, so as far as I’m concerned, we’re cool.”

I exhaled as realization dawned on me. “Did you lose your virginity to Dayna?”

“Yeah,” he said, and then backtracked like he could tell this bothered me. “Okay, it was one time and it was forever ago. We’ve both been with people since then. It’s no big deal.”

I downed the rest of my cup of wine, immediately pouring another. “How many people have you slept with?”

He shook his head, looking up. “Oh God, please don’t ask me that. I can’t even honestly tell you. A lot.”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, barely audible. I was irritated with this response. I’d figured Jake had had sex with people before. Probably multiple people. But not an indeterminable amount. “Well, I’m gonna go see how beer pong’s going.” I started to turn away from him, though he caught the crook of my elbow.

“Wait,” he said, a certain degree of pleading in his voice. “The last thing I want is for you to be mad at me about this. You asked. So we’ll talk about it.” He released my elbow and gestured towards the basement. “Let’s just go downstairs and talk, okay?” When I hesitated, he sighed. “You can bring the bottle of wine.”

I felt like this was the kind of conversation that would require a lot of alcohol to get through, so I relented and grabbed the bottle from the counter, taking it downstairs with us. By the time we’d gotten down to the basement, the remainder of people who had apparently been getting stoned were gone, so it was just Jake and I, with some Led Zeppelin song playing in the background. Obviously Alexander had been in control of the music.

Jake guided me over to the couch sitting over in the corner and immediately faced me once we sat down. “So the first thing you should know is that I used to be a huge asshole. Especially to girls. Have you ever seen How I Met Your Mother?”

“It’s only my favorite show ever,” I nodded.

“So then you’re familiar with the womanizer, Barney?” Jake asked. I nodded again in response. “That was me in a nutshell. I mean, I would’ve done just about anything to get a girl to sleep with me. And then not call her or talk to her ever again.”

“Somehow I have a hard time picturing that,” I said. This was true. Though I wasn’t pleased with the direction of this conversation, Jake had never been anything but wonderfully nice and respectful to me.

“Yeah, well, it’s true,” he said. “I’m not proud of it. But basically from the time I was like sixteen until at least nineteen, I was an asshole, and I got myself in a lot of trouble, which goes back to the entire reason I don’t drink. When I drink, I’m an asshole. And it’s not a pretty sight.”

“So why is it the first time I met you, you were trying to buy beer?” I asked. I was impressed with the truthfulness of his confession, though that didn’t mean I wasn’t wonderfully excited about it.

“Bad day,” he said. “Some stuff happened, and it just seemed ridiculously difficult to deal with. So I decided that I wanted to get drunk. And then Matt wouldn’t sell me alcohol, and I saw your poorly made sign behind him, saw you, and the rest as they say, is history.” He smiled as I let out a small laugh. “I mean, some stuff I can drink and it doesn’t really bother me. Beer’s usually fine if I have one or two. Wine’s good with meals or whatever, or a glass to relax. I can’t do shots because they make me reckless. I can’t drink scotch or whiskey because they make me act like a douche. And I definitely can’t drink tequila because that doesn’t just make me an asshole, it makes me a fucking asshole. And tequila’s also the reason why I can’t account for a lot of the people I’ve slept with. I never wanted to be the guy that didn’t remember a girl’s name in the morning. But I was. But out of all the people I’ve slept with, it’s only meant anything to me with one or two people.”

“Well,” I said, trying to think of an appropriate response to all of this information. I adjusted myself on the couch, so that my back was against one of the arm rests and my legs were spread across his lap. “I appreciate your honesty. I mean, it’s definitely not what I wanted to hear, nor was it the response I was prepared for, but it means a lot to me that you told me.” I paused before continuing. “You didn’t get anyone pregnant, did you?”

He laughed loudly, and placed a hand on my knee. “No, definitely not. No STDs, no infections of any kind, nothing. I promise I’m clean.”

“That’s even better to hear,” I said, raising my cup to my mouth to drink.

“So what about you?” Jake asked.

“I thought we weren’t discussing my sex life,” I reminded him in protest.

“Oh, come on,” he insisted, still smiling, hand secure on my knee. “I just spilled my guts to you and told you about what an asshole I used to be, and my sexual history, and my drinking issues. I just want to know this one thing.”

“Fine,” I sighed. He was right. I owed him at least one confession. And we had to have our sex discussion at some point. I’d just been hoping that it wouldn’t be directly after I’d spent an hour in a sex shop. “What do you want to know?”

“How old were you?” he asked.

“I was barely fifteen,” I answered. I definitely needed more wine for this.

“That kind of narrows it down for my next question,” Jake nodded along. He hadn’t even batted an eye. “That rules out your middle school boyfriend as the one being responsible for your deflowerment. So was it one of your many suitors in the smoking section?”

“Okay, first of all, if you call it a deflowerment again, I’m leaving,” I scoffed. “And no, it was definitely not anyone from the smoking section.” I hesitated before continuing. “Look, it’s embarrassing, okay? I liked the guy for a long time, but he was nineteen. And then he started showing interest in me and it was right around the time we found out that my mom wasn’t going to recover. I just needed somebody, and I guess he did too since he’d just broken up with his girlfriend. But then he stopped talking to me right after and started dating some girl from Chicago within a week or two.”

“So basically, he committed statutory rape and then didn’t talk to you ever again?” Jake asked, raising his eyebrows. “That’s especially douchey. Even I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, he didn’t stop talking to me forever,” I said. “Communication with him is kind of inevitable. He’s my brother’s best friend.”

“You lost your virginity to Ryan?” Jake asked, looking disappointed. “Seriously? Bald Ryan? Ryan who laughs like Scooby-Doo?”

“Alexander has multiple best friends,” I shook my head, stunned that he’d come to that conclusion that fast. “How’d you get that?”

“Ryan’s girlfriend was my sister’s roommate when she was going to school in Chicago,” Jake explained. “She introduced them, actually. She’s a friend of Alexander’s, I found out.”

“Small world,” I shrugged.

“Sorry my sister is responsible for ruining your life,” Jake teased, putting an arm around me and letting his fingers curl around the nape of my neck.

“It didn’t ruin my life,” I laughed. “It changed the way I saw and thought about certain things, yeah, but it’s probably better that things worked out the way they did, even if it hurt when it happened.” He was rubbing my neck with his fingers, and it felt unbelievable. I relaxed against his hand and shut my eyes, taking a small sip from my cup. “Listen, you can’t tell anyone that, okay? Especially not Alexander. That’s not even something that Liz knows. She still thinks I’m a virgin.”

“Wow, finally something that Liz doesn’t know,” Jake grinned. “I feel privileged.” His hand was running along my knee instead of just resting there as it had been. “Don’t worry about me telling anyone.”

We sat quietly for a moment, and I felt content just being there with him. Although I still had one question that needed answering. “So can I get one more answer out of you tonight?”

“I suppose,” he sighed, as if this were some hugely exhausting deal. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

“Why the one-eighty?” I inquired. “I mean, from the sounds of it, I would have probably hated you a few years ago. But you’re literally the nicest guy now.”

Jake shrugged. “I went through some stuff, and this is going to sound corny and cliché as all hell, but I looked in the mirror, and I realized that I hated the person I was, and it wasn’t the person I wanted to be. And I knew that it wasn’t the person I really was. So I wanted to be that guy again. I decided to take a year or so off from partying and whatnot, and get my shit together. And now this lovely gentleman is sitting before you today.” He smiled jokingly, and I laughed with him.

“Well, he is pretty lovely,” I agreed, still smiling. “I don’t know about gentleman though. You haven’t even offered to refill my glass of wine.”

“Oh, forgive me,” Jake teased, and removed his hand from my knee, bending down to grab the wine bottle and pour a little more into my cup. “I don’t want a repeat of Clay’s party.”

I scoffed. “Trust me, there’ll be no repeat of that. I’ve been taking it pretty slowly, thank you.”

“Yeah, you have,” he agreed. “So it’s probably a good sign that you’re not trying to get drunk.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “Listen, are we good now? No hard feelings?”

“We’re good,” I said. “No hard feelings.”

He pulled away, kissing my forehead. “Good. I don’t want you to be mad at me about something like that. If you’re bothered, you can just tell me, and we’ll clear it up. Deal?”

“Deal,” I told him. “Are we supposed to spit in our hands at shake on it? Because I’m not doing that.”

He laughed again, leaning in once more and kissing me on the lips. “You’re a dork, Veronica Polanski.”

“Sue me,” I shrugged, smiling, a warm feeling rising in my stomach – butterflies, almost.

“So, since you got to ask me an extra question, I think it’s only fair that I get one more, too,” he started, his hand back on my knee. “And it’s definitely a very serious one.”

“Go ahead and ask,” I said. I put my hand over his, squeezing.

“How was the sex shop?” he asked, and then burst into laughter when I removed my hand from his and shoved his shoulder. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” I chuckled with him and then rested my head on his shoulder. We sat like that together for a long time, talking and laughing. Though the night had started off less than favorably, and even though I’d learned some things about Jake I would’ve rather not known, I felt closer to him, especially after telling him about the whole Ryan thing. Down in that basement, it was the first time that I felt that I could be really serious about Jake, and that in the long run, it might not be such a bad thing.